Chapter 19
“Are you sure you can sell all of it?” Qian Mingtian’s hands trembled with excitement.
“Of course. Don’t worry, I’ll have my uncle handle the logistics,” Yu Xiaoyuan said, using his family’s name as a guarantee. “It’s just that this was so sudden, so I’ll need to borrow your village warehouse for a short while.”
“What’s the big deal about that? It’s only for two weeks. Our village won’t charge you a single cent for storage!” Qian Mingtian patted his chest and promised.
Without hesitation, Yu Xiaoyuan took out his phone and transferred five hundred thousand yuan. “Take this as an initial deposit. I’ll wire the rest this afternoon. We can square up the final balance later. I’m really putting you to a lot of trouble with this.”
“I’ll give you an address tomorrow, and you can just transport half of the grain to that location.” Yu Xiaoyuan had originally planned to lease a warehouse himself, but with such a massive volume, he would have to ask his uncle’s staff to secure a larger industrial depot.
Qian Mingtian quoted him the approximate wholesale rate, his voice thick with emotion. “Xiaoyuan, thank you so much. I… I really don’t know what to say.” He choked up slightly. “I never expected you to trust me this much.”
Back on campus, they were little more than casual acquaintances who nodded in the hallways. He had simply felt that Yu Xiaoyuan was refreshingly sincere compared to Zhang Wei and his clique, making him someone worth befriending. He never imagined that the younger student would step in with such a massive lifeline.
Leading the way along a paved trail, Qian Mingtian pointed ahead. “We have five granaries over there. They’re filled with unhulled rice, wheat, and shelled corn, all originally meant for commercial buyers. Our village pooled funds to build them back in the seventies and eighties. Because we’re right by the highway, our community was among the first in the county to prosper, and everyone works closely together.”
The silos stood tall and imposing. Prowling the perimeter were several village cats—lean, muscular, and alert, their eyes sharp and focused. At a glance, they were nothing like the pampered, sluggish felines lounging in city apartments. These were working cats with serious duties.
Naturally, the little hamster had no intention of insulting a certain fat calico back home, but he still gave a wide berth to a large ginger tabby patrolling the yard with two smaller strays in tow.
“That ginger is our top mouser—the undisputed boss of the local cats,” Qian Mingtian said, crouching down to scratch the tabby behind the ears. “Good boy.”
Yu Xiaoyuan stepped behind the senior, his smile stiffening. “Is… is that so?”
The beast looked downright lethal.
[little hamster is terrified QAQ.jpg]
“Yeah, our elders tried every trick in the book to keep hamsters out, but nothing beats a pack of working cats,” Qian Mingtian said, stroking its chin. “With them on guard, our silos are practically impenetrable. Right, Big Orange?”
“Meow~”
The ginger cat raised a firm paw and pushed the young man’s hand away, using unmistakable body language to declare that it was neither a toy to be fondled nor a pet that sold its dignity for affection. Shaking its head coldly, the feline turned and circled the two humans, resuming its patrol with crisp, silent strides.
Watching the trio vanish around the corner, Yu Xiaoyuan let out a quiet breath of relief. These country cats are terrifying—way fiercer than Uncle Zhang’s calico back at the apartment!
Qian Mingtian dusted off his hands and stood up. “We’ve been sick with worry over this harvest. If you hadn’t stepped in, we would have had to let the distillery take it for pennies in a day or two.”
He climbed a metal ladder attached to the silo wall, then reached down to pull Yu Xiaoyuan up to the observation hatch. Looking down at the vast sea of golden grain inside, Qian Mingtian beamed with pride. “This is all thanks to you. Moving forward, our village needs to rethink how we handle distribution. We can’t rely on the old methods anymore; we have to adapt to the market economy.”
“Mm-hmm!” Yu Xiaoyuan stared down at the ocean of grain, his breath catching in his throat.
Goodness gracious! There is so much grain! Mountains and mountains of food! This isn’t just a granary—it’s a little hamster’s personal paradise! It’s an amusement park!
Seeing the boy lean forward, Qian Mingtian grabbed his shoulder in alarm. “Careful! Don’t jump in there. Falling into bulk grain is like sinking into quicksand—you’ll suffocate before anyone can pull you out.”
“I know, I know,” Yu Xiaoyuan replied quickly. A tiny hamster would be perfectly fine swimming through the loose kernels, but a human body would indeed be trapped. He wasn’t that reckless.
“I think I’ll stay the night and head back to the city tomorrow,” he said, settling onto the catwalk railing. “I just want to look at it for a while.”
Look, but don’t touch? That’s a total lie! The moment you walk away, the little hamster is diving right in for a swim! I might even stage a daring midnight raid to swipe a few sacks! Hehehe… Tonight, I’m going to be a cunning little thief, slipping past those fearsome guard cats and sneaking into the grain piles!
Qian Mingtian assumed the boy simply appreciated the rustic beauty of a bountiful harvest. While the little hamster certainly loved a full silo, his enthusiasm came from an entirely different perspective.
Smiling, Qian Mingtian didn’t press the matter. “Alright, I’ll head down to draft the paperwork. Good friends settle accounts properly; I’ll make sure every bushel is weighed, graded, and tallied fair and square.”
Yu Xiaoyuan didn’t really mind the fine details; his primary goal was to provide a lifeline for this decent senior. In the memories of that past life, Qian Mingtian had survived the initial outbreak. Perhaps this village, tucked away from the chaotic city centers, could hold onto these vast reserves and build a safe haven to weather the coming storm.
Grain could easily become a target for bandits, but he trusted that a capable, sharp-minded leader like Senior Qian would know how to defend his homeland.
“Everything will work out,” Yu Xiaoyuan murmured, resting his chin on the metal rail as he smiled down at the golden harvest. He had finally found a way to repay Senior Qian’s past kindness.
Knowing that Yu Xiaoyuan had no desire to mingle with the other students, Qian Mingtian quietly took him home for lunch, keeping his arrival strictly confidential. This was to prevent the group from either flattering him relentlessly or testing the waters to see if he was still the soft-tempered pushover they could exploit.
A few graduating seniors in the group chat were already scheming to invite Yu Xiaoyuan out for a meal, hoping to leverage his family connections for a corporate offer at the Yu Corporation.
Qian Mingtian had scoffed when he read those messages. A cheap meal in exchange for an entry-level position at a top conglomerate?
They assumed Yu Xiaoyuan was naive enough to pull strings for them—not just at a modest subsidiary, but at the corporate headquarters itself! Even for top-tier graduates, landing an offer there without prior experience was nearly impossible. Yet these freeloaders actually believed they could secure multiple placements over dinner.
They had even shamelessly whispered in private:
“It’s just a few entry-level spots. The Yu Corporation is massive; they can hide us in any department.”
“Exactly. We took good care of him on campus. Helping upperclassmen land jobs is common courtesy; Young Master Yu wouldn’t be petty enough to refuse, right?”
Every word was drenched in shameless entitlement. Qian Mingtian had never realized how thick-skinned people could be. None of them had stellar grades, none had earned professional certifications, and they only joined the student council to flirt with underclassmen. They skipped lectures, played video games until dawn, crammed the night before exams, and routinely failed their finals.
How could people so utterly mediocre harbor such grand delusions?
He couldn’t change their character, but he could instruct the villagers to keep Yu Xiaoyuan’s presence under wraps. As long as the two parties never crossed paths, there would be no trouble. Besides, Qian Mingtian noticed that ever since the boy revealed his true background, he carried himself with a quiet confidence—he was no longer the defenseless kid who let others walk all over him.
Senior Qian’s mother was a warm, robust woman with kind laugh lines around her eyes. Seeing how slender Yu Xiaoyuan looked beside her sturdy son, her maternal instincts kicked in instantly.
“When you head back to the city, I’ll pack a few free-range stewing hens for you,” she insisted, heaping braised meat into his bowl. “Have your cook simmer them into broth—it’ll do wonders for your constitution!”
With that, she tore off an enormous chicken drumstick and dropped it onto his rice. “Eat up, eat up! Don’t let that clumsy boy of mine have it. He’s already built like a bear; he doesn’t need the calories!”
Before Yu Xiaoyuan could protest, she snapped off the second drumstick and piled it right on top of the first.
Yu Xiaoyuan held the mountain of food with both hands, pressing down with his chopsticks to keep the drumsticks from tumbling onto the tablecloth. Panicked, he kicked Qian Mingtian under the table.
Don’t just sit there laughing—save me!
The little hamster had an enormous heart for hoarding food, but his actual physical stomach was tiny. He couldn’t finish a fraction of this feast!
That afternoon, after wiring the remaining funds to Senior Qian so the young man wouldn’t have to advance any personal savings, Yu Xiaoyuan returned to his beloved granary.
Qian Mingtian slipped by occasionally to check on him. Seeing that the boy was simply lounging peacefully on the catwalk without climbing inside, he left him to his thoughts. Qian had his hands full anyway: entertaining his visiting classmates, managing farm chores, and coordinating the grain purchases with the village elders.
The second the coast was clear, Yu Xiaoyuan stood up, scanned the perimeter to confirm he was alone, and transformed.
With a tiny leap, the fluffy hamster plunged straight into the mountain of raw grain!
“Squeak, squeak, squeak!”
This is pure heaven! A natural playground for a little hamster!
The hamster dove headfirst into the golden kernels, tunneling down and popping back up in bursts of pure hamster bliss. There was so much rice—unending mountains of it!
He decided on a rigorous vacation itinerary: swimming through the rice silo this afternoon, taking a scenic stroll across the corn depot down the hall, and going on an evening trek through the wheat stores! He was going to conquer peaks, explore valleys, and try high-altitude bungee jumping across all five granaries!
This is the life a proper little hamster was born to live!
Twitching his ears, the hamster opened wide: “Gulp!”
He vacuumed up a mouthful of grain, causing his cheeks to puff out into massive, rounded pouches. If Second Young Master Mu were here to squeeze his face right now, he could easily shake out a small hill of rice.
With his head puffed up like a round ball, the hamster paddled across the grain, tears of sheer joy welling up in his dark eyes.
Pausing on a quiet crest, he rubbed his cheeks and fished his smartphone out from his pouch. Standing on his hind tiptoes, he leaned his paws against the wooden railing, propped the phone on a shelf, and opened the video camera.
The screen displayed a fluffy, milk-tea-colored hamster looking remarkably round and soft.
“Squeak, squeak~” Look at this handsome little hamster!
Admiring his own reflection, he preened before the lens. His rounded ears were small and neat, his dark eyes sparkled like obsidian, and his nose was a pristine pink. The soft milk-tea coat on his back blended into the snowy white fluff of his tummy—the exact kind of plush texture humans found irresistible.
Thoroughly satisfied with his looks, the little hamster recorded a short clip and sent it straight to his uncle and sister.
In the executive boardroom of the Yu Corporation, Yu Yuanzhou was presiding over a quarterly performance review when his phone vibrated with an incoming file from Little Yuan.
Glancing around the table, the CEO remained expressionless. He quietly slipped on a wireless earbud and tapped the screen.
Hmm? The camera is zoomed right onto the hamster’s face?
On screen, a fluffy furball was busily washing his whiskers, puffing out his cheeks, and preening for the lens.
Yu Yuanzhou let out a soft chuckle. The little fellow was certainly vain, tilting his head this way and that to show off his best angles. Tapping the screen, the uncle felt a wave of warmth. Ever since the boy learned to shift into his animal form, he had become far more spirited and cheerful than before, even taking the time to send cute selfies to his family.
“Hey, Old Yu, what’s that you’re watching? That looks like an agricultural grain depot. Why did you drop a pet hamster into a granary? You’ll never fish it back out,” a senior board member and longtime business partner remarked, leaning over to catch a glimpse. “Give it two months, and the place will be swarming with vermin.”
“Nonsense!” Yu Yuanzhou shielded the screen with his hand, glaring at his colleague. “How can you compare my little nephew—er, this little hamster—to common sewer rats? Look how clean and beautiful he is! He comes when called, and he certainly isn’t going to produce litters of pests!”
Even if he did, the uncle thought fiercely, I could easily afford to raise an entire army of them! In fact, I’d welcome it!
“Tsk, tsk. I heard you’ve been keeping a tiny hamster at home lately,” the partner laughed, shaking his head. “I never pegged you for the soft-hearted pet lover.”
“Mind your own business.” Yu Yuanzhou waved him away dismissively. He wasn’t just a casual pet owner; he was utterly devoted to spoiling this little creature! Forget letting him play in a village silo—if Little Yuan asked, he would commission a private granary in the city just for the boy to roll around in!
Returning to the screen, Yu Yuanzhou noticed that the hamster’s cheeks were exceptionally round, bulging with far more grain than usual.
A moment later, a second video arrived.
This one featured the little hamster demonstrating his aquatic prowess in the rice bin!
The milk-tea-colored furball plunged beneath the surface, his coat providing near-perfect camouflage against the golden kernels. Squinting, Yu Yuanzhou watched the tiny creature paddle forward in a textbook freestyle, switch to a disciplined breaststroke on the turn, and finish with a relaxed backstroke.
The backstroke made him much easier to spot, thanks to that bright, pinkish-white tummy bobbing along the surface.
Yu Yuanzhou was just about to leave a heart on the video when the final frame caught his eye.
Perched silently on the high metal catwalk directly above the grain pool stood the muscular ginger cat from earlier. It stared down without blinking, its cold, predatory eyes locked dead onto the little hamster paddling merrily below.
Yu Yuanzhou’s heart skipped a beat. Cold sweat broke out across his palms as he furiously tapped out a message to his daughter:
“We have an emergency. Your brother is about to get eaten!”
